Our Time at the Art of the Carolina's Trade Show

It's hard to believe it's already been a week since the HUGE Art of the Carolina's Trade Show sponsored by Jerry's Artarama, has passed! Where does time go? The members of the Carolina Mixed Media Guild participated in the show by having a vendor table highlighting the fantabulous art work of many of our members. We had hands down the best table in the show--the very first one when you walk in the doors! As I was manning the table I heard so many great comments about the diversity of our artists and how we had the most interesting and colorful display!

Very cool that I met my first 'Fan' from GA here, too...lol! I can't tell you how many great positive comments we received on all of our work so it was a wonderful opportunity to increase our membership of our guild and increase the exposure for the individual artists.

The second part of our participation in the trade show included a ATC make and take table. This promotion was co-sponsored by the guild and the generous donation of the members time and supplies provided for our 'students' who made ATC's with us on substrates Strathmore donated to promote their new pre cut products line of ATC blanks. We had a FREE table where passerbys could come and sit down and play with us, make and ATC and take one of the ones already made. The supply of ATC's we had on display were all made by several of our guild members who made anywhere from 20-60 cards each!! I was able to contribute 42 to our cause-phew--what a project!! Lots of fun though. This picture is an example of the prints I had made in ACEO/ATC size paper and what they look like in a little frame.

All of this wouldn't of been possible if it weren't for the tireless efforts of our wonderful guild Secretary, Penny Arrowood. Penny worked for months organizing our partnership with Jerry's
Artarama, our volunteers, vendor donations, supply round up, scheduling and assignments that had to run 14 hours a day for 3 days and 10 hours for the last day. What a HUGE undertaking. Our 2 free tables were traded for volunteer efforts during the entire show to set up, up keep with water buckets....heavy water buckets mind you, and break down of classrooms for all the classes provided during the 4 day show. Morning, afternoon and night classes required volunteer and manpower to be available during the entire span of the show, before and after opening and closing. Wow--what a whirlwind time but so worth it!! Our guild met soooo many beautiful and talented people, we also have been afforded tons of exposure, and class room space at Jerry's for our 2009 guild meetings. Thank you Penny for your leadership in this undertaking as well as a big thank you to all the volunteers!!

Tables set with some initial supplies at the Make and Take table.

ATC galore

Lovely cards made by the uber talented Jeanne Rhea

The assortment of cards we had was out of this world!


We organized some ATC examples on a few of the grids provided by another talented member, Michelle.

A constant flow of 'Students' provided for great conversation, technique sharing and teaching, fantastic art created, and new friends made.

Another big thank you going out to Nanette Z. who worked along side Penny during the entire 4 days all day and night and before that helping with scheduling and volunteer round up. Nanette is a fantastic Mixed Media Fiber Artist--check out her blog. We need to encourage her to set up an Etsy shop so her creations can be shared with everyone!

Can we say supply overload??? This was just a small portion of all the offerings from the major art suppliers in every genre that you can imagine.

You don't even want to know how much I spent.

Let's just say that this is just a small portion of my purchases.....lol. I had to send dear Nanette back for more that I wanted to get since she was there all weekend and I just volunteered on Friday. :) Wait to you see what I come up with using all my new toys!! It's going to be a great 2009, I can feel it!

So there---that was our event last weekend, so much to be thankful for, so many to be grateful to...lots of energy exerted, lots of laughter, sweat and tears shed.
We all are moving upward and onward and it felt good to participate in such a wonderful event.